Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A (2026) - Fr Anthony Walsh, OP

We are often told to ‘be true to ourselves.’  It can be found in the carefully curated images on social media that pose the question: “What version of myself do I want others to see?”   It can be the common lived expression of “I just need to be true to myself.”   Or it can be manifested in the ‘drop everything and reinvent your life’ narrative. Even in the “You do you”.

These statements are portrayed as attractive. They sound freeing as opportunities of maturity, ownership, and authenticity. However the question arises: which self? The one I was ten years ago? The one I am today? The one I will be tomorrow? If I must build my own truth, then I must constantly rebuild my life—and that is a burden. It is not surprising that many people are exhausted by it. If everything depends on my way, then I must constantly decide the direction of my life. If everything depends on my truth, then I must constantly justify what I believe. If everything depends on my life, then I must constantly hold it together.  Certainly, a heavy burden.

Into that world, Christ speaks—not with a suggestion, but with a claim: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.” This is not a way among many, nor one truth among others, nor a path that might suit some. Christ speaks in the singular. This is precisely where this Gospel becomes difficult and where it becomes liberating.

Thomas asks a very practical question: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” He is thinking of a path—something mapped out, something you can follow step by step. Jesus, however, does not give him directions. He gives him Himself. “I am the Way.” In other words, the Christian life is not first about finding the right path. It is about following a person. The modern instinct is to say: I will choose my way. I will determine my direction. But Christ says: You will not find the way by looking within yourself. You will find it by walking with Me. That requires something difficult: it requires letting go of control. But it also removes a burden. You do not have to invent your life. You are called to follow.

Jesus’ second phrase, ‘I am the truth’ brings us to something even more confronting. We live in a time where people speak of “my truth.” Truth becomes something personal, something shaped by experience, something that can shift. But in the Gospel of John, truth is not something we create. Truth is something—Someone—who is revealed. When Philip says, “Lord, show us the Father,” Jesus answers almost with a kind of sorrow: “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me?” To see Christ is to see the Father. To hear Christ is to hear the Father. Truth is not an idea detached from life. It is not simply a set of teachings. It is God made visible in Christ. So the question is not: ‘What do I think is true?’ It becomes: ‘Am I willing to receive the truth as it is given in the person of Jesus?’ That can be unsettling. Because it means I do not stand above reality, judging it. But it is also freeing. Because I am no longer trapped in my own shifting interpretations.

Often we speak of “living my life”—as though life were something we possess, something we shape entirely on our own terms. But in the Gospel, life is not something we generate. It is something we receive. The life that Christ speaks of is not just biological existence. It is not simply a full or successful life. It is participation in the very life of God.

This life comes in a way that seems almost paradoxical. It comes not through grasping, but through surrender; not through self-assertion, but through abiding in Christ; not through securing everything for myself, but through entrusting myself to Him. This is why the saints speak of losing their life in order to find it. The life Christ gives is greater than the one we try to construct.

The contrast is clear for us to see. The world says: Find your way. Speak your truth. Live your life. Christ says: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  That is I don’t have to invent the way, nor construct the truth, nor secure my life.  This is the invitation into communion with God that grants us freedom.

At the beginning of this Gospel, Jesus says: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” It is grounded in this reality: that the One who calls us is Himself the Way to the Father, the Truth who reveals the Father, and the Life who shares the Father’s own being. So perhaps the most important question is not whether we understand these words. It is whether we are willing to let them reorder our lives.  The statements by Jesus about himself become a type of examination of conscience: Do I still insist on my way rather than follow Him? Do I cling to my truth rather than receiving His? Do I seek to control my life rather than entrusting it to Him?

This where the Gospel becomes real, because Christ does not simply offer guidance; He offers Himself.  As St. Peter recounts to us in the second reading that Christ is the keystone:  “The Lord is the living stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him.”

Fr Anthony Walsh, OP is the Master of Novices, assigned to St Laurence's Priory, North Adelaide, South Australia.